The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Kitchen Cottage on February 11, 2016, 02:20:54 pm
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Very boring question.
I make dog treats for charity. I make dry ones and jerky in the dehydrator because otherwise they would go off before they arrived.
I would like to try softer ones and am considering getting a food vacuum sealer. I need these to stay non mouldy for about 7 to 10 days and am talking about stuff like liver treats....
I will be doing up to a hundred bags (they are one of 7 treats....) in a day and I do these about 3 times a year.
Can anyone recommend a vacuum sealer. I don't want to spend too much money on this.
Many thanks
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*dusts post carefully and puts it in tea towel drawer*
*wanders off*
:sheep: :spin: :knit:
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I've got an Andrew James vacuum sealer for vac packing my salami, air dried ham etc. It wasn't too expensive (£40 I think) and we think it does the job for our needs :thumbsup:
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I've got an Andrew James vacuum sealer for vac packing my salami, air dried ham etc. It wasn't too expensive (£40 I think) and we think it does the job for our needs :thumbsup:
Thats the one we have , has done sterling work , over 2 pigs ( after butchering ) chicken , my meds, ready meals for the freezer, important paperwork and making our own boil in the bag dinners.
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I have the Andrew James too. It's good but the rolls of bags are expensive and they don't go far
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I bought one of those little Andrew James ones last year when my more commercial one broke and I needed one in a hurry, just to tide us over. I have hammered it relentlessly, packing bacon up to 100 odd packs one after the other and it never let us down. Very good value for money and works well with the embossed bags from weschenfelder which are more expensive than "proper" vac bags but cheaper than the stuff on a roll that comes with the machine.
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I have an elderly one which I got from Lakeland Plastics.
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I have an Andrew James too, it was about £100 and it has a max width of 40cm. I have found it to be ok, since getting it in Dec last year I have used it for two lambs and two pigs, so alot of meat.
However, I did notice when looking through the freezer that the seal has broken on some of the bags. And when I have been using it, although it has a setting for doing moist products, I feel like the it could get more air out of the bags if it was a better machine.
But, saying this, I am used to using a commercial machine at work which really does vac pack superbly, at the end of the day, a machine geared towards the home market is never going to produce the results you get from a commercial machine.
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We got an eiffel freshpack pro which was on offer and had good review, I used it to bag up 3 pigs worth of meat over a weekend and it worked really well.
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Have been following this with interest.
Never a boring question on TAS! :thumbsup:
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I have the Eiffel one too and would definitely recommend it!
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We decided to pay more to buy a decent one so we got this machine from Weschenfelder a couple of years ago. It's an absolutely brilliant machine, easy to use and there haven't been any problems at all
http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/vacuum-packing-equipment/vac-pack-machines/takaje-vacuum-machine-10-off.html (http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/vacuum-packing-equipment/vac-pack-machines/takaje-vacuum-machine-10-off.html)
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We are on or third vac & heat sealer .. the tow dead ones were from Aldi and about £20 both tiumes . They were only good for sealing the lighter bags . you had to alow the heating wire to cool down for a good 80 seconds or it porduced holes innthe seal area due to it getting too hot and melting the bags so much that the plastic flowed .
Both of them had new self adhesive non stick tapes over the heating wire .. once the machine has got too hot for too long the strips lose their non sticky capabilities.
We tried all manner of bags froim the supermarkets .. none were really satisfactory
I bit the bullet and purchased 10 heat seal vac pack bags from Weschenfelder's they ran at about 13 p each .. These much heavier bags have an embossed pattern on one side of he bags which allows air to be extracted much better than the flat bags.
This last time round we purchased the bags in 500's as started to get sensibly cheaper .
Because the bags are a much thicker plastic they stand up to a lot more abrasion and abuse . They are also great innthe freezer buty a bugger to seal up if you have left them open and frozen the contents fiurst so you don't such juices up into your machine.
There is a way of doing it , you carefully fold the top 1& 3/4 inches over to one side and place the bags to be frozen up right in a carboard box so they stand up right. Lightly pack it with foam to stop them falling over .
After the last machine died we coughed up about £180 for a bit heavier duty cycle one , it is an upright machine which has a few plus'es going for it such as you being able to lay a bag on the table top when sealing it . There is also a variable vacuum setting & timer device .
It's called a , " Food saver V 6840 " and it does not do thin flimsy bags at all .. this one gets used a minimum of a dozen or so times a week ,, still needs a 30 second pause to let the heater tape cool but other wise we can't sing its praises enough .
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We used to have one of the Takaje ones from Weschenfelder. Unfortunately the seals go on them eventually and you can't get spares for them. 0/10 for Weschenfelders on that.
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Why not try on Ebay? they sometimes have really good ones for sale at low prices.